Nizhny Novgorod police detained the late journalist Irina Slavina's daughter as she tried to lay flowers outside the regional police headquarters in memory of her mother, human rights watchdog OVD-Info reported on Thursday.
Slavina, editor-in-chief of the independent news outlet Koza Press, died on Oct. 2, 2020, after setting herself on fire in front of the regional police building. About an hour before her death, Slavina, 47, had written on her Facebook page: “I ask you to blame the Russian Federation for my death.”
Her daughter, Margarita Murakhtaeva, told the exiled news outlet Mediazona that she was “immediately” approached by police when she arrived to lay flowers at the site of her mother’s death on Thursday.
Murakhtaeva was later released from police custody, OVD-Info reported.
The day before her death, local security forces raided Slavina's home in search of evidence of her alleged involvement with the opposition.
“They were looking for brochures, leaflets, invoices of [banned pro-democracy movement] Open Russia, possibly an icon with the face of [exiled oligarch] Mikhail Khodorkovsky,” she wrote.
Open Russia was labeled “undesirable” in 2017. Under Russian law, individuals found to be affiliated with “undesirable” organizations face up to four years in prison, while organization leaders risk up to six years.
Koza Press covered local politics and corruption in Nizhny Novgorod, a city 400 kilometers east of Moscow. Slavina had run the outlet single-handedly, and it was shut down after her death.
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